First up is 'etcat versions'. Given a package name this lists all versions of the package that are in portage, along with masking state and also marks which versions are currently installed. There is no equivalent to this in equery that I can find. Very useful.
The other is that the 'uses' command in etcat is far more useful than query's equivalent, in that it will list use flags for packages that you don't have installed yet, along with highlighting which are currently configured to be enabled. If you run it against a package that *is* installed it shows you which are enabled in the installed version along with marking which flags differ between the configured and the actually installed.
These are both really useful features. The really annoying thing is that etcat uses doesn't actually work at the moment (traceback below), which means I have to install the package to find out what use flags I actually want, and then install the package again! Well, that or go looking through the gentoo files myself, but that's what these utillities are supposed to help you avoid. Yes, I know I can do an emerge -pv <package> to see a list of the use flags, but that doesn't explain what they all mean, which etcat did.
Anyone know if equery is going to be brought up to the level of etcat in these cases?
Regards,
--
Russ. -- [email protected] mailing list
